ADU Surveys in Pittsburg, CA

Pittsburg's ADU guidebook is homeowner-friendly — it even allows hand-drawn site plans showing property lines, structures with square footages, setbacks, the driveway, and easements, directing applicants to a recent title report or the Engineering Division to find those easements. But it draws one firm line: if the site needs preparation — grading or retaining walls to create flat space for the ADU — those plans go to the Engineering Division for review and approval, with permit fees to match. That split describes Pittsburg's geography. The old waterfront grid and the central tracts are flat and forgiving; the newer neighborhoods climbing the hills toward the ridgeline south of Buchanan Road are exactly where "a little leveling" becomes an engineered grading plan that needs measured existing ground behind it.

The hand-drawn allowance is also where projects quietly go wrong. A sketch based on the fence line inherits the fence's error, and Pittsburg's mix of century-old grid lots and postwar tracts carries plenty of drift between occupation and record — while field inspectors frequently require a surveyor to verify foundation forms against approved setbacks before the pour, hand-drawn plan or not. Pittsburg ADUs also collect outside-agency sign-offs before permit issuance — fire district, water district for separate meters, Delta Diablo for sewer — and utility routing on the site plan is easier to approve when it reflects located facilities rather than assumptions. Our laser-scanned site survey delivers the whole package in one visit: resolved boundary, structures, easements of record, utility locations, and elevations that answer the grading question before Engineering asks it.

Records run through the Contra Costa County Recorder in Martinez. Deliverables are a stamped base map, layered DWG, and staked corners; for slope-led work see our Pittsburg topographic surveys.